HEALTH CULT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22917, 21 December 1937, Page 12

HEALTH CULT

PASSENGEBS BY OBFOBD STRANGE FOODS ON MENU SOCIETY'S RULES AND SONGS When the Orient liner Orford arrives at Auckland on Thursday morning in the course of a tourist cruise people on the wharf will probably hear 200 voices singing .songs deriding the folly of drinking tea and smoking and chanting the praises of natural foods. From the decks banners will be wared bearing health slogans, and subsequently 200 members of the Natural Health Society from Melbourne. Sjdnev and Brisbane will descend on the city. Members of the society believe only in certain kinds of '"natural ' foods and in certain dietetic combinations. As a result the liner's chef has been forced to make special arrangements for meals during the cruise around the Australian coast and across the Tasman. The 200 Australian delegates to an annual holiday conference will lead a "natural, regulated life" for the duration of the cruise. The members of the party range in age from one year to 80 and each morning they will assemble on the sports deck of the liner to go through half an hour's "curative exercises." These will be followed by a short health talk and then a breakfast consisting of cereals, milk, coffee made from dandelion roots or soya beans, raisins, dates, nuts and asparagus, celery or spinach on toast. There will be no smoking, and sugar, tea, meats and intoxicating liquors are forbidden. Delegates are not allowed to eat fruit and bread together, and they are frowned upon if they consume fruiu and cooked vegetables at the one meal. The massed singing of the society's "hymns" is to be made a feature of the liner's call at each port.